To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known!
I have this visualization of my best friend sitting in first chair next to her rival saxophone player, the heavy brass instrument hanging beside her. He only got to be first chair about twice during middle school, because everyday after school she was forced to practice for two hours to keep that chair. To keep that passion of music. And then when high school came she divided her time between drama after school and marching band before. After graduating from college she moved to New York City and then L.A. to pursue a career in acting. She left that saxophone in her parents house in Virginia.
About a month or two ago when she finally gave up her dreams of being an actress, she started a music blog (it's linked underneath my faded beach picture, selectbypush) and started writing music reviews for popmatters.com. She also got an internship at a record label to really start getting into the business. Her blog is all about the bands that are going to be at Coachella, where we are meeting in a couple of days.
I don't feel like she's really giving anything up, actually. And for her, music never really went away. She's just rediscovering her passion for it. She's brought out that old saxophone and she's finally starting to play it in front of people.
It is called Bunkerhill Saloon and it's on the outskirts of downtown old Vegas. It's basically on a street of apartment complexes and I think as we pull up that we could discover another side of Vegas tonight. When we walk in the opening band is still playing and a couple people are dancing at this old bar and I see beards and flannel shirts and I think: this really could be something. I'm immediately in North Carolina, but this lasts about twenty minutes.
By the time Akron/Family sets up their equipment themselves, half the crowd is drunk or has left. There's about ten of us who are really interested in what's going on and as they begin to play some ass hole by the bar yells: "you suck!" The bass player gladly dedicates their set to him before the second song. It's just three of them, and they are loud, folk, electric, and amazing. I think I'll leave the music writing to my best friend and my roommate, but it truly was one of the best shows I've ever been to. It was seven bucks, a couple of PBR's, and a reminder of how important music is to me in my life.
After the show we tell them what a great job they did, my roommate buys a t-shirt and we say we'll see them at Coachella this weekend. Thursday night we are heading out to the campground after my roommate gets off of work. I was going to go into work an hour early today to get the schedule ready for when our manager gets back into town. We've had a couple of people quit recently, so I've already got to adjust the schedule accordingly. I'll never really know what makes people tick or how people find what they are passionate about, but I feel like something is tilting in my life, spilling over.
I'm already late sitting here writing this blog. I think I'll stay and keep listening to music with my patio door open. I think I'll go into work when I'm supposed to and know that I can get it done later. For right now, I just want to hang out and enjoy some music and think about this weekend...
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Blogaversary.
One year ago I started this crazy thing. So I officially know exactly what I was doing a year ago today. Whole Foods, gas prices (75 cents cheaper), Virginia Tech shootings, going to work, the way the weather felt that day, listening to Wilco, going to coffee.
Honestly, I'm just having a weird day. But I wanted to write because it's been one year and it's weird. Just having a blog and writing about myself is weird.
Honestly, I'm just having a weird day. But I wanted to write because it's been one year and it's weird. Just having a blog and writing about myself is weird.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
While Hiking at Red Rock...
rocks hardwired to other rocks slipping underneath your gray newbalance shoes luon sticking to a cactus picked out over raw hummus and smoothies and sun gazing over a fake lake paddle boats old school style any style two men smoking cigarettes and one has risked his life for the other you can just tell by the way they swagger around each other and you sit and enjoy some fake grass after trying to catch up on the way up the desert mountain and on the way down you were like a cat, impressive and red cheeks and nose dry in that desert and the strip was tiny, you crushed the stratosphere with your index and thumb all those people making bad decisions below you and earth and breeze and some cashews and dates pictures being taken and remembered one after another with sweat frozen with dust to your forehead and it's so nice to have a day off and see the red rocks in the distance one after another laying on each other so soft and curled up and sitting, one leg on top of the other, you talk about things that have been, travels to what you considered the edge of the earth and to you it's impossible to only have been as far east as Chicago but then again the last time you were in Portland you were four and things scramble on the way down you turn and scale a mountain and miss a yoga class and things don't seem to bother you as much as they used to even as he moves way out ahead of you and even when on the way up you pointed out your family dynamic in a group of friends your mom in the car your dad way up ahead and sister mediating in the middle brother off missing somewhere and you taking a break near the bottom and when you see them at the top the you has wondered off and made it up first and you take a picture of yourself and he then takes a picture of you in a bridge pose and yoga makes you heal and wonder about these kinds of things wandering around the mountain and you both can even see Utah from here and then driving to go get those smoothies and sit by the lake you stop by a neighborhood with hills of fake grass and both see your teenage years in a flash of smoke and you put your broken sunglasses on, crooked on your sunburned nose and you move slowly to something tired, something rested, something unheard of before now...
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
I think I'll spend my whole life deciding if this is true or not.
I woke up on Sunday morning in an awful mood that I just couldn't shake. Even though I had plenty of sleep the night before and I was getting ready to go to a Steve Ross workshop across town. He was the first person I ever did yoga with, on the Oxygen network, in my living room in Virginia. In the house I grew up in my kitchen is attached to the living room, so my family was hanging around as I tried to concentrate on postures. "Does that really do anything?" my brother asked me mid-pose. "Can't you see I'm sweating?"
My dad firmly believes (he only firmly believes in anything, it's never a half-assed thing for him) that people are born with certain dispositions. Who they are is who they are, and there is no changing that. There are certain things one can do throughout life to adapt to situations, but generally people are set in their ways from very early on.
My new roommate and I went together to the yoga class; he went to a coffee shop to write while I went to my yoga class. In the car and earlier that morning I was just being an ass hole the whole time. I couldn't shake this bad mood and I was taking it all out on him. Telling him I needed space and that I was one of those abnormal people in that I needed time to myself for about two hours a day or I get really impatient with people around me. It was a similar conversation to the ones we used to have when we were dating. I just went right back to that formula.
It's all really silly, anyway. Even as I got to the yoga class, one I'd been looking forward to all month; I couldn't really process how I was feeling. The kind of yoga that Steve Ross teaches is relaxed but intense; basically he wants you to eventually come into your own true self. At least, that's how I see it. He plays hip hop music and expects you to not take yourself so seriously. Toward the end of the class he leaned down to me while I was stretching in a hip-opening pose and said: You're quiet today. Is it working for you? I stubbornly answered : YES!
My dad firmly believes (he only firmly believes in anything, it's never a half-assed thing for him) that people are born with certain dispositions. Who they are is who they are, and there is no changing that. There are certain things one can do throughout life to adapt to situations, but generally people are set in their ways from very early on.
My new roommate and I went together to the yoga class; he went to a coffee shop to write while I went to my yoga class. In the car and earlier that morning I was just being an ass hole the whole time. I couldn't shake this bad mood and I was taking it all out on him. Telling him I needed space and that I was one of those abnormal people in that I needed time to myself for about two hours a day or I get really impatient with people around me. It was a similar conversation to the ones we used to have when we were dating. I just went right back to that formula.
It's all really silly, anyway. Even as I got to the yoga class, one I'd been looking forward to all month; I couldn't really process how I was feeling. The kind of yoga that Steve Ross teaches is relaxed but intense; basically he wants you to eventually come into your own true self. At least, that's how I see it. He plays hip hop music and expects you to not take yourself so seriously. Toward the end of the class he leaned down to me while I was stretching in a hip-opening pose and said: You're quiet today. Is it working for you? I stubbornly answered : YES!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Tomorrow, of all days...
Stack his journals, pictures, clothes, and razor on the chair in the living room. Go through the box of pictures, pick out the best ones with him and his brother, the best ones from your wedding, one with your son playing his violin, and one of your daughter sitting on the front steps. Wash the clothes, throw away the razor, and start to read through his journal for good poems about his life, about nature, about Buddhism. Stop at the poem about your son, about the day the three of you trekked through a snow storm to get him to his violin lessons, about how you were the only ones who showed up that day and proudly announced that you were from New England. About time, and change, and how later when your son came home one weekend from college he was different. He had grown a beard. And the poem compared him to a snow angel, and how his arms grew wings and carried him away. He wrote about how he missed his son now that he was no longer living at home. How he didn’t feel like he knew him anymore.
Don’t play any Johnny Cash, it’ll make you cry. Wash the sheets so they don’t smell like him anymore. In fact: vacuum, clean the counters, take out the recycling, sweep the front porch, move each vase of flowers from the living room to the dining room and then back. Smell the flowers and know that in two weeks, they, too, will be gone. Get out all the necessary paperwork. Find it in his desk drawers and in the safe in the attic. Look at the paperwork; thumb through it like it makes sense, like you can concentrate on it, then put it away until tomorrow. Until your brother is there because he is good at handling all of the necessaries. Take Zeke on his walk, and remember his Frisbee. Wait.
Touch the New York Times Magazine that has sat on your couch since the day they called you out of class. Since the day your students wondered when you'd be back to teach English, and since they started sending cards saying: “We’re sorry for your loss.” Look again at the magazine and remember how you took it with you to the Emergency Room that day, thinking you would have to wait a couple hours before he was out of the hospital. Remember the nurses’ face as you asked to see him.
Fluff the couch cushions and put a kettle on the stove. Line all of the different teas on the clean counter. Get out the milk and sugar. Remind yourself to go to the store to get more milk. You’ll do that in a couple of days. When things have settled down and no one is leaving dinner or flowers on your doorstep. Wait.
Give long, intense hugs and watch your son and daughter pull their luggage across the room. Watch them hang up their coats, as they tell you that people will be there soon and that everything is ready and the food is on the way and that everything is going to be okay.
Show your daughter the flowers that a family of one of his students sent, and watch her scoff at the thought of it. Because to her, flowers don’t represent comfort, but anger and rage, and the replacement that smells up a corner of the room. Watch her walk into the kitchen and immediately begin to cry when she sees the calendar hanging on the wall, marked with School Staff Meetings at 7 p.m., a trip to Irvine, California, and then, on March 22nd, Ralph dies. Look at her touch the calendar, and then walk outside to the back porch and pick up the phone to call her friends in California.
Listen to each story about how he shaved his beard just above the lip so that a deaf student could read his lips. About how he wanted each student to feel comfortable in his classroom. Listen to how he took a deer off the highway and brought it to a butcher because it was such a waste not to. About how he drove past it on the highway twice and then decided to pull over, wrap it in his coat, and place it in the trunk. How you told him to take care of it, because a hanging deer in the middle of a Philadelphia suburb wasn’t exactly normal. But neither was he.
Watch as your two brothers and their families read about how he found God in nature, and how he hiked as much of the Appalachian Trail as possible. Until his sixty year-old body couldn’t take it anymore. Until he hit Pennsylvania and the green and mountains had become too much for his knees. Listen to your neighbors tell people how he darted across the street the first day they moved in to carry a coffee table and welcome them to Philadelphia. Watch your brother hand you a picture of him dancing a few months ago at your nephew’s wedding. Remember how he slid his thin legs across the marble floor, suspenders held tight against his chest, eyes closed in harmony with his own tune.
Listen to his patience, whispering in your ear that it will all be over soon, that things will settle down. That he will call any minute and tell you why he decided to ride his bike to the hospital the day he felt his shortness of breath, how a young girl was in the elevator when he hit his head on the rail, and fell over from a sudden heart attack. How lucky he was to be in the hospital, but how unlucky he was to have a small piece of plaque in an artery of his heart. How he loved the metal of that bike, and how much he appreciated the hospital returning it when he couldn’t. When he was returned in ashes and air and flowers and food and family you haven’t seen in many months, even years.
Wonder how you will survive the ceremony the next day. Wonder why his death is the only time his whole family could be in one room. Slowly watch people leave your house. Feel them hug you. Feel the cool air that brushes over you just after a hug, and then feel nothing.
***
Three years ago tomorrow I was living in Boston, across town from where my uncle grew up. I was in this writing group that met out at bars once a week and that week we decided to do a list writing exercise. I had just gotten back from my uncle's funeral when I wrote this, sitting at my kitchen table. I don't begin to know how my aunt was feeling, but I do know that when I wrote this, things began to heal for me. Even some of the truths I knew at the time, or some of the truths I've heard later, after I wrote this, don't matter in this writing exercise. In my small family, we don't always talk about things in the most candid way, but my aunt contains something very true and real about her. Especially after her husband died, it seems. Maybe nows the time to start writing a letter or email. I want to hear stories about her and my dad and their brother. And I don't even want to bother with the truth.
Don’t play any Johnny Cash, it’ll make you cry. Wash the sheets so they don’t smell like him anymore. In fact: vacuum, clean the counters, take out the recycling, sweep the front porch, move each vase of flowers from the living room to the dining room and then back. Smell the flowers and know that in two weeks, they, too, will be gone. Get out all the necessary paperwork. Find it in his desk drawers and in the safe in the attic. Look at the paperwork; thumb through it like it makes sense, like you can concentrate on it, then put it away until tomorrow. Until your brother is there because he is good at handling all of the necessaries. Take Zeke on his walk, and remember his Frisbee. Wait.
Touch the New York Times Magazine that has sat on your couch since the day they called you out of class. Since the day your students wondered when you'd be back to teach English, and since they started sending cards saying: “We’re sorry for your loss.” Look again at the magazine and remember how you took it with you to the Emergency Room that day, thinking you would have to wait a couple hours before he was out of the hospital. Remember the nurses’ face as you asked to see him.
Fluff the couch cushions and put a kettle on the stove. Line all of the different teas on the clean counter. Get out the milk and sugar. Remind yourself to go to the store to get more milk. You’ll do that in a couple of days. When things have settled down and no one is leaving dinner or flowers on your doorstep. Wait.
Give long, intense hugs and watch your son and daughter pull their luggage across the room. Watch them hang up their coats, as they tell you that people will be there soon and that everything is ready and the food is on the way and that everything is going to be okay.
Show your daughter the flowers that a family of one of his students sent, and watch her scoff at the thought of it. Because to her, flowers don’t represent comfort, but anger and rage, and the replacement that smells up a corner of the room. Watch her walk into the kitchen and immediately begin to cry when she sees the calendar hanging on the wall, marked with School Staff Meetings at 7 p.m., a trip to Irvine, California, and then, on March 22nd, Ralph dies. Look at her touch the calendar, and then walk outside to the back porch and pick up the phone to call her friends in California.
Listen to each story about how he shaved his beard just above the lip so that a deaf student could read his lips. About how he wanted each student to feel comfortable in his classroom. Listen to how he took a deer off the highway and brought it to a butcher because it was such a waste not to. About how he drove past it on the highway twice and then decided to pull over, wrap it in his coat, and place it in the trunk. How you told him to take care of it, because a hanging deer in the middle of a Philadelphia suburb wasn’t exactly normal. But neither was he.
Watch as your two brothers and their families read about how he found God in nature, and how he hiked as much of the Appalachian Trail as possible. Until his sixty year-old body couldn’t take it anymore. Until he hit Pennsylvania and the green and mountains had become too much for his knees. Listen to your neighbors tell people how he darted across the street the first day they moved in to carry a coffee table and welcome them to Philadelphia. Watch your brother hand you a picture of him dancing a few months ago at your nephew’s wedding. Remember how he slid his thin legs across the marble floor, suspenders held tight against his chest, eyes closed in harmony with his own tune.
Listen to his patience, whispering in your ear that it will all be over soon, that things will settle down. That he will call any minute and tell you why he decided to ride his bike to the hospital the day he felt his shortness of breath, how a young girl was in the elevator when he hit his head on the rail, and fell over from a sudden heart attack. How lucky he was to be in the hospital, but how unlucky he was to have a small piece of plaque in an artery of his heart. How he loved the metal of that bike, and how much he appreciated the hospital returning it when he couldn’t. When he was returned in ashes and air and flowers and food and family you haven’t seen in many months, even years.
Wonder how you will survive the ceremony the next day. Wonder why his death is the only time his whole family could be in one room. Slowly watch people leave your house. Feel them hug you. Feel the cool air that brushes over you just after a hug, and then feel nothing.
***
Three years ago tomorrow I was living in Boston, across town from where my uncle grew up. I was in this writing group that met out at bars once a week and that week we decided to do a list writing exercise. I had just gotten back from my uncle's funeral when I wrote this, sitting at my kitchen table. I don't begin to know how my aunt was feeling, but I do know that when I wrote this, things began to heal for me. Even some of the truths I knew at the time, or some of the truths I've heard later, after I wrote this, don't matter in this writing exercise. In my small family, we don't always talk about things in the most candid way, but my aunt contains something very true and real about her. Especially after her husband died, it seems. Maybe nows the time to start writing a letter or email. I want to hear stories about her and my dad and their brother. And I don't even want to bother with the truth.
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